@joshuaplank9791 Dear god, no! I still have trauma from that film, even though I haven't seen it since 1997. Interestingly, though, that was a John Waters film, with John Waters playing the gay character in this episode of The Simpsons!
It is wild hearing how much transphpbia in the UK is just re-packaged homophobia bit gives me hope that maybe one day we'll be more accepted. It gives me chills that being trans was only depathologised by the ICD in 2019
A mistake in the captioning: You have John saying, "That'll make your bowl run" after drinking old bourbon from the Civil War figurine. He really says, "That'll make your bull run." He's making a reference to the Battle of Bull Run from the American Civil War.
Regarding villains and gay people being drawn to them. There are multiple factors 1)Hays morality code The only you could show a queer character of even vaguely non straight was as a villain. With the implication you could kill them off/punish them for their bad behaviour. Hence a lot of villains being queer coded. 2)Disney villains specifically Maleficent, Cruella, Scar, Hook etc. Are all over the top and campy, but most importantly they are self confident. They do not give a damn the world is against them, they have no grand illusion that they are in the "right". They do as they desire and make no apology for it. That's very attractive to insecure queer individuals.
To add my own thoughts to your points about gay villains, I think that since society has for so long told queer people that who they were born as was sinful, illegal, criminal behavior, that at a certain point being a villain seems more reasonable than maintaining the rigidly, violently, homogenous society that those in power have imposed. Because when the world you live in is inherently unjust, becoming a villain and fighting to tear down a toxic system is the only available option
I wish they would've kept in the part where Bart asks, "Why did you take me to a gay steel mill?" and Homer just says, "I don't know!" I was a teenager when this episode aired and it sure opened my eyes to gay stereotypes. Then when Mr. Smithers shows up, it was like a bomb dropped. Mr. Smithers is gay??? Yes, I'm very slow. I thought all those times he was giving Mr. Burns the heart eyes and some of his behavior was just him being "silly." (The Simpsons aired when I was seven years old--give me a break). Being gay was such a big deal back then, so when Will and Grace came out in 1998, I was shocked! Not one but TWO of the main characters were gay??? It was quite the wake up call and education. Of course, my gay brother introduced us to that show. By then, it was pretty clear to me he was gay. My younger brother and I didn't care, but we didn't say anything until he officially came out. I don't think I ever thought being gay was bad--just that a lot of people were violent towards gay people and the Bible was against it. I didn't judge others for being gay, but I judged myself for my own queer thoughts and being worried about what my parents would say. When I finally told my parents I was bisexual and my fear that our extended family would judge them for having two queer children, my dad said the same thing to me as he said when my brother came out. "If anyone in the family has a problem with it, they can take it up with ME." Anyone watch that Married with Children episode where Peggy went to dance clubs by herself because Al wouldn't go with her? She made friends with a hot guy and they would dance together (Al didn't care). Then one night, a cute little man knocks on Al's door and says that Peggy's been going out with his husband. Al invites him in and the guy ends up cooking and cleaning for Al and Al just loves it. The guy's like, "Aren't we gonna do something about our spouses going out with each other?" and Al's like, "Yeah, yeah, sure." That was probably my first "in-your-face" exposure to gay couples. I was probably less than ten years old, so I could be remembering it differently. I was just like, "Hmm. Those two men are married. I didn't know that was a thing." Anyway. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. EDIT to add: Holy, shit I found the Married with Children episode! Dan Castellaneta is the husband! th-cam.com/video/D25kiWMDv0w/w-d-xo.html
I think of camp as an exaggeration that takes an idea far beyond its function. I saw a picture of a storied performer in her old age who was performing with sequins in place of eye shadow.
On the note of both Margaret Thatcher and Judy Garland - for those unaware, the UK had "Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead" get pushed to the top of the billboard charts in the wake of Thatcher's death.
I’d call John’s collection kitsch rather than camp. Edit: loved the captions telling us the TV had “rabbi ears”! I imagine a TV with a yarmulke and ringlets now!
I love this whole episode. But the Steel Mill scene in particular is just so great, it pulls on the most stereotypical gay character tropes you can imagine entirely straight faced and presents Homer as the bad guy for reacting to this crowd the way he does. As a side note "The Anvil" is the sickest gay nightclub name.
Another great video! This is such a clever episode. When I hear camp, I think of something iconically silly and absurd... like Ronnie Corbert in the Cinderella panto (that reference might be too niche!) I think it's hard to pin down a definition.
Interesting little note about that episode. That scene in the pen when Homer says "This guy is a FRUIT." Initially, that was written as f-g, but John Waters said he wouldn't do it unless they changed it.
The censors initially wouldn't allow this whole episode to go to air, they had to fight pretty hard for it, also John Waters wrote a letter endorsing the episode so with that they allowed it.
Try the “American Dad” episode about Stan “choosing” to be gay so he can lead the Log Cabin Republicans….its this but updated by ten years and is hilarious!
It took me a moment to think of what I'd consider my "queer icon" and I realized it'd have to be Alan Turing. I don't know how you'd define "icon" exactly, but he was a central, if not THE central figure of early computer science, helped us beat the Nazis in WW2... and he was gay. I can't think of a better example of who I'd admire who was also gay.
Speaking of 90s and gay conversion, "But I'm a cheerleader", was a very good film. I live in Sweden and I grew up in the 80s and my dad was a factory worker and my mother a store clerk off and on between unemployment. You get child care money here, a certain amount per month, probably why we could afford a nice house in a small town. I never came out as long as I lived with my parents. Things like my dad calling a neighbour "the f... ot" because he was gay or suspected to be gay, not to him, just when he couldn't hear. And calling people on TV words I'd rather not say.
My favorite code words for describing gay men is when old-fashioned old people tried to warn my dad away from hanging out with a gay man by saying, "He likes theater. He's, y'know. He's into opera. He likes musicals." and my dad, who isn't from the US and therefore had zero idea what they were hinting at, went, "Oh. I like some of those, too." and went right on hanging out with his now best friend. And when said friend came out, my dad was confused, because, direct quote, "you seemed so straight to me!" That it would take my dad until his early 80's to realize he was bi really goes to show just how slow some dudes can be on the uptake. "I can't be queer. Queer people know how to dress and have witty comebacks!" Bless him.
That will make your bull run is such a great joke. Battle of Bull Run was the first battle of the US Civil War. I do quote "hot stuff coming through" a lot
Camp was also Rocky and Bullwinkle. I saw a movie in which an English actress was being insincere during rehearsal and the director told her "don't camp it up."
As a straight John Waters is largely the person who defined the word 'camp' for me and my understanding of his definition of it's epitome would be 1960s Batman. But yeah... the 90s were a wild time in the US, I remember when this aired and my mother was working as a private day care for roughly 10 families(35-40k/yr) and keeping us in a large 4 bedroom. Absolutely bananas looking back on it.
The Family Guy cutaway of an Italian describing a gay man’s sexuality is so funny! Code words like “Foofy, off to the side, backwards mechanic, likes to play in the dirt”🤣
I'm Indigenous from Turtle Island (Canada). We have the concept of "Coming In" opposed to the "Coming Out". Coming Out often is seen as this big scary thing that has people hiding a huge piece of themselves. Coming Into our identity means we embrace the parts of ourselves that make us us. And it also leaves room for us to explore our identity through gender and sexuality. 💖
Housing: 1986 millenial here. You are right about how wild that is. We were 2 children with only my father working. Income was low, we never could afford going on a vacation (and lots of other things) and (especially because) my sister and me had good school grades (meaning being in the "higher" branches) most of our classmates came from financially more stable households. But the house was my father's childhood home. (basement, first and second floor) His parents had build it themselves somewhere in the 50ties. Impossible today. Also both my parents had alcohol issues. My parents divorced when I was 15 (and finances got even more difficult. My mother had BPD and had allways struggled to manage money. She only worked a few years until she had invalidity pension for her deteriorating mental health) My father is the worst boomer cliché you can imagine. He's absolutely the type to blame my sister's husband for "being lazy". Because "in the old days" young folks who just worked hard could afforfd to build a house... It's utterly hopeless to even try and reason with him how so many things have changed since then... Exhausting really. (Also, my brother in law is a computer worker. My father never even had internet. Any work that is not "heavy manual work" (like what he did) does not count as real work to him. I genuinely can take my father in doses... Edit 13:25: he also couldn't stand the Simpsons. Whenever we watched them as kids, he zapped away or put the TV off. Likely exactly for the reasoon that he felt called out so often that it made him uncomfortable. Not that he would ever have that insight. He would just call the show stupid. Period.)
I loved learning about the early 20th Century slang used among the queer community - particularly 'hair code', by which I mean "to have one's hair up" meant to style one's femininity to masquerade as more masculine (like pinning long hair up and tight to the head as if it were short) - likewise, "to let one's hair down" meant being able to relax as oneself - without having to hide (so we can thank the queer community for that one). Then, as a corollary, "to drop hair pins" was to subtly let on clues about one's sexuality while out in Hetero-dominant society. I just love it
my great gandmother had a huge collection of those figurines. Apparently they are only worth anything if you don't drink the liquor; hers are currently worthless.
Section 28 was rough. It lasted my whole time at primary and secondary school. I remember an English class where we were learning about the W H Auden poem Stop All The Clocks. Most of my classmates were saying homophobic stuff and I was trying my best to argue against them. I was 15 at the time and needed backing up but I expect my English teacher was too worried about section 28. It was probably quite brave of her to even teach us about Auden in the first place.
Actually when you brought up the house I immediately thought of the episode "Homer's Enemy". Maybe you could do an episode on that in the future in relation to inferiority complexes and how to healthily overcome it?
Yes, that's where my head went, too! I agree, that topic would be a great way to examine attitudes about how comparison leads to insecurity and resentment, just like what Frank Grimes (or "Grimey," as he liked to be called) struggled with in the face of Homer's stupidity and incompetence having no personal consequences.
Hey Doctor Elliot, if you're looking for something to react to, I really recommend the movie Perfect Blue. They movie is about a popstar's relationship with dissociation and psychosis, I think it'd be perfect for you. Absolutely loving the videos btw, only found your channel recently and it's all I've been watching lol
When I hear "camp" when it comes to LGBTQ+ stuff, I actually DO think of John Waters, and not just because of this episode. His movies, in general, are what immediately spring to mind when I hear the term "camp" used. Also, I know the exact roundtable conversation you're referring to with Andrew Scott. It's such a great take, and I enjoyed that Colman Domingo, another proudly gay man, was in the same conversation. It's a really good and interesting video, highly recommend. I think it was also RDJ, Paul Giamatti, and... I can't remember who else, but it's one of my favorite actor's roundtable conversations I've watched.
A lot of the famous Disney villains: Maleficent, Cruella deville, Ursula, and Scar. Were made at a time when homosexual characters could not be displayed on television, and if they were, the homosexual character had to be punished. Thus, the only roles that homosexuals were reserved to were villains.
Friend of Dorothy - and why she became such a queer icon - is because Judy was known to be a safe person to come out to. She made closeted male stars feel comfortable to be themselves in her presence. She was also well known to enter PR relationships with gay men to protect them. Natalie Wood is another female star who was accepting like Judy. She dated Raymond Burr (Perry Mason) to help cover for him.
speaking of huge houses back in the day, I'm rewatching Daria (late 90s, early 2000s) and all the characters live in gigantic houses. Gigantic, detached houses on their own bits of land. Granted, Daria's mother is a lawyer and her father Jake works in advertising, but her friend Jane Lane's parents are very hippy dippy unconventional lifestyle five kids in total and also live in a gigantic house.
I would like to mention that cartoons have always depicted large homes: smaller spaces require constant attention to fitting characters into the space and reducing large gestures. I always think back to the home of the Flintstones -- the kitchen had to be big enough for the mammoth under the sink to rinse.
In Small to mid size cities in the US giant houses were fairly common and achievable. Unless you're looking at a suburb of a major city or extremely desirable location like a costal area with a good climate, then things change dramatically. The US model for the past century was to expand outward into "cheap" farm land or undeveloped. Building low density residential, population grown has made that low density increasingly problematic, and most places have hit the limit of outward expansion. That combined with inflation and income disparity are making for some major housing issues.
Maybe mine is just myopic nostalgia, but I think we were more socially advanced in the '90s. Then, 9/11, neocons, war, economic crisis... sent everything decades back
Not just you - this is an actual thing activists working at the time have documented. Once 9/11 happened, massive gains on anti-war activism were walked back, the slow & steady rise of neocons and their children (incel movements, etc.), all occured. Economic austerity was already occuring since the 80s, but 9/11 just sort of... globally jumpstarted neocons.
I love how, in the late 70s/early 80s, the NIS (which later became NCIS) learnt that “friends of Dorothy” meant gay men, and they assumed there was a _real woman named Dorothy_ who somehow knew all the gay men in the Navy… they launched a massive (and of course futile) search for Dorothy in the hopes they could convince her to tell them all the names of the secretly gay men serving 😂
My ex is a bisexual man who was born in the same year as you, and this is one of his favourite Simpsons episodes. He always cracks up at Homer’s reaction when Bart asks “why did you bring me to a gay steel mill?” I think one of the reasons that the episode is so good is because in addition to his guest role on the episode, John Waters also acted as an unofficial consultant. The writers ran ideas by him whilst scripting the episode, and he offered advice and suggested edits. One of the most notable changes he made is that initially Homer referred to John as the F-slur, and Waters had them change it to the word “queer”.
Stephen Stucker from Airplane 1 and 2 and Kentucky Fried Movie is my favorite gay man, just because I find him hilarious and his happy "gay" attitude very uplifting.
I go right to "camp" as seen in old British comedy, the overexaggerated hand gestures/walk, higher pitched voice etc. Kenneth Williams, Larry Grayson etc.
I'd like to see your take on Mr Garrison from South Park coming out as gay. I recently realised he's actually the first animated character to literally come out as gay ( years before smithers) and this video seemed like the perfect time to point that out 🤣.
Camp and Kitsch go hand in hand and if you know anything about recent nostalgia antiques collecting you'd know that most antique and or curio shop owners/proprietors were known to be queer or queer adjacent. Curious and queer are almost synonymous: "What a curious fellow." "What a queer* fellow." * queer here was used in the pre twentieth century to mean odd, unusual or out of sort and not as homosexual or necessarily perverted.
In an episode of _WKRP in Cincinnati_ Les becomes temporarily suicidal when he's mistaken for gay. He was interviewing a local baseball player, and doing a poor job of it; after he left one of the other reporters said to another one "queer little fellow, isn't he?" and the ball player misunderstood, demanding that Les be banned from the locker room because he's gay.
The late comedian Rip Taylor made a similar point about the term “openly gay”. People assumed he was gay because he was flamboyant and in a long term relationship with a man, but he was actually bisexual. When a journalist referred to him as “openly gay” in an article, Taylor emailed him and wrote "You don't know me to surmise I am openly gay. I don't know you're not an open heroin user. You see how that works? Think before you write.
I'm gay middle aged man ... when I was a teen / 15 ... I remember distinctly the very real feeling of fear I had at one point when thinking of gay men . In my mind I realized what the fear WAS , was the fear of losing my sexual identity by a gay man taking it away . The olde ' turning you gay ' lie In my life I remember being less than ten years old and gazing at a shirtless guy across the street and being fascinated by him long before i was interested in sex . And my whole life being wary of women and not attracted sexually . So it was interesting that even I , had at one point a fear of gay culture . It opened my eyes to the first hand feeling of it in others .
I used that clip at the end with Bart saying “He thinks I’m gay?” as a trsnsition between songs in a mix CD back in 2001. Can’t remember which songs. I downloaded it off Napster (and have instantly aged myself). It brings back fond memories. My husband and kids and I listened to that mix a LOT that summer, mostly on the way to the beach.
"Up to the knukle" "Backwards mechanic" "Likes to play in the dirt" All from family guy I knew when I was 7, but I didn't. I never actually properly figured myself out until about 4 or 5 years ago, I'm 34 now. I spent the longest time thinking I was bi because I liked a few girls growing up but then it hit me 1 day, I never ever found any of them actually attractive like that. The 90's was torture to grow up like that, nobody ever talked about it, I still don't know if my mum knows, she just, christ, impossible to talk to she is & how did I know at 7 you ask, I gave a couple boys valentines cards. & I distinctly remember finding them physically attractive, hah, I still remember all of them nearly 3 decades on. Oh, the reaction I got was toxic when they figured out who they were from. I've thought about that moment since as well, nearly 30 kids in our class, almost half boys, I wonder how many of us were gay or bi, wonder if any of them knew at the time or if that was a trigger for them to think about such stuff. But yup, that was @ 7 years old, having no understanding of the reaction that came.
When I hear the term camp (as a straight guy, so not too much weight on my thoughts) it always makes me think of the Adam west Batman in the 1960s series and how homophobia still plays a part today in how Batman fans are unwilling to consider the more camp version of Batman as a valid version of Batman. Even though the best Batman actor ever (Kevin Conroy the voice of Batman from the 1990’s up until his death in 2022) was a gay man who was and still is loved unanimously among all varieties of Batman fans. If whoever sees this hasn’t done so already I highly recommend reading his story in DC’s pride issue from either 2021 or 2022 I don’t remember which exactly.
Scott Thompson's Buddy Cole or honestly Kids In The Hall in general were crucial to me learning about and understanding that gay people are just that, people like everybody else when I was a kid even before this episode came out.
It’s kinda funny you said about an Analysis about the gay Disney villains there’s an entire episode of Culture Cruise that delves into it. It’s a show on TH-cam that gets into lgbtq things in tv and pop culture. And talking about from a psychiatrists view the episode about of all things bob Newheart actually goes into when homosexuality was removed from the list of mental illnesses and how that transpired. Sorry for the side trip it just reminded me of that. Love your show and love this episode of the Simpsons it’s one of my favorite. I’d even bought the dvd set so I could get the video commentary lol.
When talking about Camp influences I grew up with, the first and foremost is John Inman, and his portrayal of Mr. Humphries on "Are you being served?" Mom and I often exchanged "Are you free? I'm free!" Sadly, in a harsh bit of reality, I learned that customer service is definitely NOT for me.
1985 Gay Millennial here! From just outside Toronto. - Housing was wild; my 2-parent income has a combined household of.... maybe 90k and we had a 5 floor house. And we were considered solidly middle class (not even upper-middle class). It was just normal. EXTREMELY normal. I've gone back to that neighbourhood in the past few years.... and even though the infrastructure hasn't changed (same houses, etc.), the area is now solidly upper class. Primarily because of the changes of housing changes. - Prioritising is a word, Doctor - Homophobia was wild? I can track having gay feelings as a 5 year old (art that also connoted hatred of men); but as a child it was more openly prominent in the home. I'm of Indo-Caribbean descent, and culturally it's much more violent demonstrated that my predominately-white school love. It created a relationship where I loved school and academia (white school = won't be violently hurt for demonstrating effete tendencies). But I was absolutely alienated socially. Only when I went to a high school with a dedicated arts program did I find friends (who, guess what, were all soon-to-be-homos). I'm lucky 90% of my teachers really latched on to me (a clearly queer, brown kid where there were no others at the time). - Queer rep in the 90s was difficultly to find. As a kid, I was really into anime, was obsessed with Sailormoon, and then found out that there was an openly lesbian couple in the show. Sailoruranus & Sailorneptune were revolutionary characters because they were queer, gender-bending, and were never undermined for being queer. They weren't a joke. They were hypercompetent, serious, and beautiful.
When I think camp, I think Graham Norton, which is why it was a shock to me (having learnt at a young age to not automatically assume that Camp equals Gay) to discover that he was also gay 😅
The best part of that episode was when Moe and Homer were driving back in the truck from the camping trip. Moe suggests taking Lisa camping instead of Bart. When Homer tells Moe that Lisa’s a vegetarian, he says “Oh Homer! Geeze! You and Marge ain’t cousins are ya?”
This episode litterally changed how I perceived people. I was 11 when this episode released, and in a lot of ways, my life was a lot like Bart's. I lived in a pretty average house, I was the big brother to 2 younger siblings, my family went to church every Sunday, etc. Not to mention that it seemed like absolutely everyone watched The Simpsons regularly back then. Only difference is that I'm Canadian. But yeah, this episode is what really got me to question a lot of beliefs that I had held without question. It took me a few years before I actually challenged and changed those beliefs, but this episode was the very fist step towards change for me. I've always known I liked girls, my first real crush being a girl who joined my kindergarten class, and I had never personally known anyone who was gay at that point, so this was literally my first interaction with gay culture of any kind, And I remember thinking that If this is what gay people are really like that, then I don't see why other people have a problem .
That wasn't the Cher version of "The Shoop Shoop Song." That was the Betty Everet version. Homer wasn't complaining about Bart singing along, it was about him wearing a woman's wig while singing along.
Love that you did not once mention that John on this episode is John Waters. Whats even more ironic, Ursula is based on his character of Divine, so if he says its camp, its camp lol
This was The Simpsons adt its best. Funny, great social commentary, and good introspection. I’m the same age as you. And was raised predominantly in a somewhat moderate catholic household and school, and through social conditioning had my own ideas about what I thought was normal and abnormal. The week after I turned 18, the Mardi Gras was on here in Sydney, and my friends girlfriend wanted to go. I was curious but I was nervous because I still had all these stupid ideas about homosexuality. Not only was it one of the funniest nights of my life. As somebody who had gone blind as a teenager and who always felt, like I was an outcast, it was an amazing festival of odd and strange and very liberating and freeing because nobody pays attention to the blind guy with a cane in his hand because there’s a guy over there on a float with assless chaps having the time of his life rocking out to bohemian Rhapsody. I have never had an opinion about something change overnight the way that happened that night. And I’m very grateful.
Re: US drinking culture, it depends on where you live. Students at the university in my hometown had a tradition of doing 21 shots on their 21st birthday, and yes, some of them died from alcohol poisoning. I’m from the drunkest state in the country, though.
I was the only person who knew what syrup of ipecac was in my EMT course because I read a lot about queer history and knew it was used in conversion therapies. Knowing your history will always come in handy, even in unexpected places!
In the US, a Tuesday night in the UK is considered normal drinking lol. Binge-drinking however is super common, especially in your early 20s, so people don't usually blink an eye if you're getting wasted every Friday night in college. Culturally, it begins to be considered a problem if you're doing that multiple times a week, or you don't outgrow it, or you're drinking more than a few drinks daily. Basically the usual - if it's interfering with your life.
Rob Halford. I like how his music subverts the expectation of what music from a gay artist should sound like. Also, in It, I think it's really ironic because there's a homophobe in the book who lists Judas Priest as one of his favorite bands, before he came out.
It's like Archie Bunker on the show All in the family when he saves a drag queen from a mugger not realising that she's a drag queen and his wife Edith can tell right away. Archie flips out at first but he eventually befriends the drag queen.
Genuinely one of my favourite episodes of The Simpsons ever - great writing, story and jokes from start to finish! In terms of it's time it was quite the revolutionary episode showcasing gay people to a primetime TV audience in western culture. Queer icon for me will always be Chyna, the wrestler. I always loved wrestling so queer icons didn't really come by much, but Chyna really subverted the idea of what a strong female could be. Always loved her getting her flowers in her day. Ellen and Graham Norton were probably my first real visual representation of queer people on TV, so they also have that place in my heart. And who couldn't ever not love Sean Hayes as Jack MacFarland in Will and Grace? Unabashed, authentic and hilarious all the time! Showing my age now!
The conversation that Homer has with Moe about homosexuals and the steel works is practically the same conversation my father and uncle had back in the 1990s, where they discussed how a postman in a town "40 miles" away, being potentially "gay", meant that the Royal Mail had been "taken-over" by homosexuals. The 90s were a very different time folks.
Thanks. Interesting perspective on the Simpsons episode. Camp to me was the Carry on films, Mr Humphries from Are You Being Served and here in Australia when Graham Kennedy was hosting Blankety Blanks and he'd do his Cyril character. Maybe the Scarlett Pimpernel could be classed as camp.
"He's a ho...mo... sapien." Homer was on board for that statement... or Homer's low vocabulary made him open to any word that he might not know, but he knows 'homosexual'.
I remember watching this episode as a 5th grader back in the 90s. I never knew what a "gay was" until this episode. This episode introduced me to the concept that boys could like boys and it was ok for boys not to conform to standard gender norms.
Architect here....Concerning the house of the Simpsons. Homer must have bought the house in the mid 80s. A decent family home, in need of some repairs and built in the 50s/60s outside metropolitan areas ( I would consider Springfield a rather small city, even though it is sometimes portrayed as bigger.) was available for 30-50k $ which would result in a mortage of around 400$.
It's a little off-topic, but I love how you mentioned Oscar Wilde in this episode. There's this story I heard where at his trial he was asked outright if he was gay. His response was a bit more flowery, but it was essentially "bitch, I might be". I've always admired how he felt no need to hide who he was and it's a shame Oscar Wilde died so young ...
I do love this episode because its great. It came out when i was 10 and i didnt...really know what 'gay' meant (i didnt know the 'to be happy' defintion either) so i started asking questions. Once i learned it was loving a person that happens to be the same sex as you i was like 'huh. Ok. Cool. So why is homer upset?' i also had no idea about the stereotypes around gay men so i didnt get the episode...i just was like 'aaww. John seems friendly. i like his car'. But yeh im not sure what it was in the uk but i learned recently that it was illegal to...exist as gay person until 1998 in tasmania here in australia. That is insanely recent. Like homosexuality was outright illegal. one thing to check out is hannah gadsby's' Nannette' special on netflix. Heartwrenching.
For the house thing. Yes. I own a flat and that’s likely the best I’ll manage for years. My grandad died last year and his 4 bedroom home that he bought for something like 50p in the 70s when they were a single income household (SAH wife) with THREE children has been valued at £355k. I make significantly above the national average salary in a DINK household, but in order to buy that house on a 25 year mortgage, I’d need to pay 2k a month before paying a single other bill. I’m 37. I’m older now with no kids than my grandad was when he had 3 kids and bought that house. It’s just so unattainable now.
![เปิด อาณาจักร หมื่นล้าน "สาระตั้ม" l [Nickynachat]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3XE0nPF4YkQ/mqdefault.jpg)
"We work hard, we play hard"
One of the greatest scenes in TV history
"EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!!"
Hot stuff, coming through!
@@jimmymcfly9822😂
There's no better name for a steel mill turned gay bar than The Anvil.
@@fredcamacho5333 100% agree.
I mean Ursula was based on a real drag queen (Devine), so I think she at least has a reason to be seen by many as a queer icon
I'm wondering if a reaction to Pink Flamingos is in order?
@joshuaplank9791 Dear god, no! I still have trauma from that film, even though I haven't seen it since 1997. Interestingly, though, that was a John Waters film, with John Waters playing the gay character in this episode of The Simpsons!
As a compromise, how about Serial Mom?
"And the entire steel mill was gay" for some reason always sends me into hysterics
It is wild hearing how much transphpbia in the UK is just re-packaged homophobia bit gives me hope that maybe one day we'll be more accepted. It gives me chills that being trans was only depathologised by the ICD in 2019
A mistake in the captioning: You have John saying, "That'll make your bowl run" after drinking old bourbon from the Civil War figurine. He really says, "That'll make your bull run." He's making a reference to the Battle of Bull Run from the American Civil War.
Ah! Now that's good
Thank you fellow history nerd. I was about to point that out. 😅
I didnt know where the reference was from but "bull run" sounds like it's going to give you some temporary vigor/libido. Bowl is so confusing haha.
Homer clearly thought Marge was gonna say homosapien lol
Regarding villains and gay people being drawn to them.
There are multiple factors
1)Hays morality code
The only you could show a queer character of even vaguely non straight was as a villain. With the implication you could kill them off/punish them for their bad behaviour. Hence a lot of villains being queer coded.
2)Disney villains specifically
Maleficent, Cruella, Scar, Hook etc. Are all over the top and campy, but most importantly they are self confident. They do not give a damn the world is against them, they have no grand illusion that they are in the "right". They do as they desire and make no apology for it. That's very attractive to insecure queer individuals.
To add my own thoughts to your points about gay villains, I think that since society has for so long told queer people that who they were born as was sinful, illegal, criminal behavior, that at a certain point being a villain seems more reasonable than maintaining the rigidly, violently, homogenous society that those in power have imposed. Because when the world you live in is inherently unjust, becoming a villain and fighting to tear down a toxic system is the only available option
I wish they would've kept in the part where Bart asks, "Why did you take me to a gay steel mill?" and Homer just says, "I don't know!"
I was a teenager when this episode aired and it sure opened my eyes to gay stereotypes. Then when Mr. Smithers shows up, it was like a bomb dropped. Mr. Smithers is gay??? Yes, I'm very slow. I thought all those times he was giving Mr. Burns the heart eyes and some of his behavior was just him being "silly." (The Simpsons aired when I was seven years old--give me a break).
Being gay was such a big deal back then, so when Will and Grace came out in 1998, I was shocked! Not one but TWO of the main characters were gay??? It was quite the wake up call and education. Of course, my gay brother introduced us to that show. By then, it was pretty clear to me he was gay. My younger brother and I didn't care, but we didn't say anything until he officially came out.
I don't think I ever thought being gay was bad--just that a lot of people were violent towards gay people and the Bible was against it. I didn't judge others for being gay, but I judged myself for my own queer thoughts and being worried about what my parents would say. When I finally told my parents I was bisexual and my fear that our extended family would judge them for having two queer children, my dad said the same thing to me as he said when my brother came out. "If anyone in the family has a problem with it, they can take it up with ME."
Anyone watch that Married with Children episode where Peggy went to dance clubs by herself because Al wouldn't go with her? She made friends with a hot guy and they would dance together (Al didn't care). Then one night, a cute little man knocks on Al's door and says that Peggy's been going out with his husband. Al invites him in and the guy ends up cooking and cleaning for Al and Al just loves it. The guy's like, "Aren't we gonna do something about our spouses going out with each other?" and Al's like, "Yeah, yeah, sure." That was probably my first "in-your-face" exposure to gay couples. I was probably less than ten years old, so I could be remembering it differently. I was just like, "Hmm. Those two men are married. I didn't know that was a thing."
Anyway. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
EDIT to add: Holy, shit I found the Married with Children episode! Dan Castellaneta is the husband!
th-cam.com/video/D25kiWMDv0w/w-d-xo.html
OMG that's amazing
I remember this Married with Children episode. It was a great one.
I THINK camp is like theater kid level of playing into stereotypes that are mostly assigned to a different gender.
I think of camp as an exaggeration that takes an idea far beyond its function.
I saw a picture of a storied performer in her old age who was performing with sequins in place of eye shadow.
On the note of both Margaret Thatcher and Judy Garland - for those unaware, the UK had "Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead" get pushed to the top of the billboard charts in the wake of Thatcher's death.
It was one of my proudest Brit moments 😂
But all the radio stations were too up themselves to actually play it
I’d call John’s collection kitsch rather than camp.
Edit: loved the captions telling us the TV had “rabbi ears”! I imagine a TV with a yarmulke and ringlets now!
Fred Mercury wasnt gay, he had a moustache
Family Guy!😂
Dang, thiught it was Community
😂
I love this whole episode. But the Steel Mill scene in particular is just so great, it pulls on the most stereotypical gay character tropes you can imagine entirely straight faced and presents Homer as the bad guy for reacting to this crowd the way he does.
As a side note "The Anvil" is the sickest gay nightclub name.
Another great video! This is such a clever episode. When I hear camp, I think of something iconically silly and absurd... like Ronnie Corbert in the Cinderella panto (that reference might be too niche!) I think it's hard to pin down a definition.
Interesting little note about that episode. That scene in the pen when Homer says "This guy is a FRUIT." Initially, that was written as f-g, but John Waters said he wouldn't do it unless they changed it.
The censors initially wouldn't allow this whole episode to go to air, they had to fight pretty hard for it, also John Waters wrote a letter endorsing the episode so with that they allowed it.
As I recall, the writing staff weren't pushing for the word; they just didn't realize it was any worse than the other terms used.
Try the “American Dad” episode about Stan “choosing” to be gay so he can lead the Log Cabin Republicans….its this but updated by ten years and is hilarious!
Seconding this.
Definitely.
It took me a moment to think of what I'd consider my "queer icon" and I realized it'd have to be Alan Turing. I don't know how you'd define "icon" exactly, but he was a central, if not THE central figure of early computer science, helped us beat the Nazis in WW2... and he was gay. I can't think of a better example of who I'd admire who was also gay.
Speaking of 90s and gay conversion, "But I'm a cheerleader", was a very good film.
I live in Sweden and I grew up in the 80s and my dad was a factory worker and my mother a store clerk off and on between unemployment. You get child care money here, a certain amount per month, probably why we could afford a nice house in a small town.
I never came out as long as I lived with my parents. Things like my dad calling a neighbour "the f... ot" because he was gay or suspected to be gay, not to him, just when he couldn't hear. And calling people on TV words I'd rather not say.
My favorite code words for describing gay men is when old-fashioned old people tried to warn my dad away from hanging out with a gay man by saying, "He likes theater. He's, y'know. He's into opera. He likes musicals." and my dad, who isn't from the US and therefore had zero idea what they were hinting at, went, "Oh. I like some of those, too." and went right on hanging out with his now best friend. And when said friend came out, my dad was confused, because, direct quote, "you seemed so straight to me!" That it would take my dad until his early 80's to realize he was bi really goes to show just how slow some dudes can be on the uptake. "I can't be queer. Queer people know how to dress and have witty comebacks!" Bless him.
That will make your bull run is such a great joke. Battle of Bull Run was the first battle of the US Civil War. I do quote "hot stuff coming through" a lot
I used to do that a lot when I was a waiter. I would say "Hot stuff coming through.... and I have food."
Camp is The Rocky Horror Picture Show 😂
Exactly lol
Camp was also Rocky and Bullwinkle.
I saw a movie in which an English actress was being insincere during rehearsal and the director told her "don't camp it up."
As a straight John Waters is largely the person who defined the word 'camp' for me and my understanding of his definition of it's epitome would be 1960s Batman.
But yeah... the 90s were a wild time in the US, I remember when this aired and my mother was working as a private day care for roughly 10 families(35-40k/yr) and keeping us in a large 4 bedroom. Absolutely bananas looking back on it.
The Family Guy cutaway of an Italian describing a gay man’s sexuality is so funny! Code words like “Foofy, off to the side, backwards mechanic, likes to play in the dirt”🤣
Pretty sure Bart was playing Betty Everett’s version of “It’s In His Kiss”, aka the “Shoop,Shoop” song. Cher’s is great also
as is Linda Rondstadt’s.
i love the interaction between john and smithers because it implies they have some history we know nothing about
I'm Indigenous from Turtle Island (Canada). We have the concept of "Coming In" opposed to the "Coming Out". Coming Out often is seen as this big scary thing that has people hiding a huge piece of themselves. Coming Into our identity means we embrace the parts of ourselves that make us us. And it also leaves room for us to explore our identity through gender and sexuality. 💖
Housing: 1986 millenial here. You are right about how wild that is. We were 2 children with only my father working. Income was low, we never could afford going on a vacation (and lots of other things) and (especially because) my sister and me had good school grades (meaning being in the "higher" branches) most of our classmates came from financially more stable households. But the house was my father's childhood home. (basement, first and second floor) His parents had build it themselves somewhere in the 50ties. Impossible today.
Also both my parents had alcohol issues.
My parents divorced when I was 15 (and finances got even more difficult. My mother had BPD and had allways struggled to manage money. She only worked a few years until she had invalidity pension for her deteriorating mental health)
My father is the worst boomer cliché you can imagine. He's absolutely the type to blame my sister's husband for "being lazy". Because "in the old days" young folks who just worked hard could afforfd to build a house... It's utterly hopeless to even try and reason with him how so many things have changed since then...
Exhausting really. (Also, my brother in law is a computer worker. My father never even had internet. Any work that is not "heavy manual work" (like what he did) does not count as real work to him. I genuinely can take my father in doses... Edit 13:25: he also couldn't stand the Simpsons. Whenever we watched them as kids, he zapped away or put the TV off. Likely exactly for the reasoon that he felt called out so often that it made him uncomfortable. Not that he would ever have that insight. He would just call the show stupid. Period.)
As a straight man that grew up with family guy, my dumb *ss thought camp meant a “prey the gay away” church camp…..
One of my favourite code phrases for ‘homosexual’ is ‘he’s aware of his hands’.
I loved learning about the early 20th Century slang used among the queer community - particularly 'hair code', by which I mean "to have one's hair up" meant to style one's femininity to masquerade as more masculine (like pinning long hair up and tight to the head as if it were short) - likewise, "to let one's hair down" meant being able to relax as oneself - without having to hide (so we can thank the queer community for that one). Then, as a corollary, "to drop hair pins" was to subtly let on clues about one's sexuality while out in Hetero-dominant society. I just love it
my great gandmother had a huge collection of those figurines. Apparently they are only worth anything if you don't drink the liquor; hers are currently worthless.
Section 28 was rough. It lasted my whole time at primary and secondary school. I remember an English class where we were learning about the W H Auden poem Stop All The Clocks. Most of my classmates were saying homophobic stuff and I was trying my best to argue against them. I was 15 at the time and needed backing up but I expect my English teacher was too worried about section 28. It was probably quite brave of her to even teach us about Auden in the first place.
Actually when you brought up the house I immediately thought of the episode "Homer's Enemy". Maybe you could do an episode on that in the future in relation to inferiority complexes and how to healthily overcome it?
Yes, that's where my head went, too!
I agree, that topic would be a great way to examine attitudes about how comparison leads to insecurity and resentment, just like what Frank Grimes (or "Grimey," as he liked to be called) struggled with in the face of Homer's stupidity and incompetence having no personal consequences.
Hey Doctor Elliot, if you're looking for something to react to, I really recommend the movie Perfect Blue. They movie is about a popstar's relationship with dissociation and psychosis, I think it'd be perfect for you. Absolutely loving the videos btw, only found your channel recently and it's all I've been watching lol
A friend of Dorothy always makes me smile
"A friend of (...) makes me smile"
The same friend, or different ones in each instance?
Happy Birthday, MR. SMIIITHHERSSSSS
When I hear "camp" when it comes to LGBTQ+ stuff, I actually DO think of John Waters, and not just because of this episode. His movies, in general, are what immediately spring to mind when I hear the term "camp" used.
Also, I know the exact roundtable conversation you're referring to with Andrew Scott. It's such a great take, and I enjoyed that Colman Domingo, another proudly gay man, was in the same conversation. It's a really good and interesting video, highly recommend. I think it was also RDJ, Paul Giamatti, and... I can't remember who else, but it's one of my favorite actor's roundtable conversations I've watched.
The entire Steel milll scene is GOLD!!!😂
It's not gold, it's steel 😜
A lot of the famous Disney villains: Maleficent, Cruella deville, Ursula, and Scar. Were made at a time when homosexual characters could not be displayed on television, and if they were, the homosexual character had to be punished. Thus, the only roles that homosexuals were reserved to were villains.
0:40 I mean… for me personally, the word “camp” makes me think of the old Batman show, being all bright and flashy and colourful, ye ken?
Friend of Dorothy - and why she became such a queer icon - is because Judy was known to be a safe person to come out to. She made closeted male stars feel comfortable to be themselves in her presence. She was also well known to enter PR relationships with gay men to protect them.
Natalie Wood is another female star who was accepting like Judy. She dated Raymond Burr (Perry Mason) to help cover for him.
High ceilings are great in a hot climate but terrible to heat. You wouldn't like them once your winter heating bill came in.
6:10 John is a Ho Mo Sapian!
Homer: AHHHHHHHHHHH
speaking of huge houses back in the day, I'm rewatching Daria (late 90s, early 2000s) and all the characters live in gigantic houses. Gigantic, detached houses on their own bits of land. Granted, Daria's mother is a lawyer and her father Jake works in advertising, but her friend Jane Lane's parents are very hippy dippy unconventional lifestyle five kids in total and also live in a gigantic house.
I would like to mention that cartoons have always depicted large homes: smaller spaces require constant attention to fitting characters into the space and reducing large gestures. I always think back to the home of the Flintstones -- the kitchen had to be big enough for the mammoth under the sink to rinse.
In Small to mid size cities in the US giant houses were fairly common and achievable. Unless you're looking at a suburb of a major city or extremely desirable location like a costal area with a good climate, then things change dramatically.
The US model for the past century was to expand outward into "cheap" farm land or undeveloped. Building low density residential, population grown has made that low density increasingly problematic, and most places have hit the limit of outward expansion. That combined with inflation and income disparity are making for some major housing issues.
Homer was originally going to call John a "F*****" in the script, with John Waters having to explain to the staff that it would be going too far.
Maybe mine is just myopic nostalgia, but I think we were more socially advanced in the '90s. Then, 9/11, neocons, war, economic crisis... sent everything decades back
💯
Not just you - this is an actual thing activists working at the time have documented. Once 9/11 happened, massive gains on anti-war activism were walked back, the slow & steady rise of neocons and their children (incel movements, etc.), all occured. Economic austerity was already occuring since the 80s, but 9/11 just sort of... globally jumpstarted neocons.
I fear part of that might be the "don't ask, don't tell" attitude in the 90s. These days, the love and the hate are more in the open.
@@jaywinner328 changes don't always need a revolution
I love how, in the late 70s/early 80s, the NIS (which later became NCIS) learnt that “friends of Dorothy” meant gay men, and they assumed there was a _real woman named Dorothy_ who somehow knew all the gay men in the Navy… they launched a massive (and of course futile) search for Dorothy in the hopes they could convince her to tell them all the names of the secretly gay men serving 😂
My ex is a bisexual man who was born in the same year as you, and this is one of his favourite Simpsons episodes. He always cracks up at Homer’s reaction when Bart asks “why did you bring me to a gay steel mill?” I think one of the reasons that the episode is so good is because in addition to his guest role on the episode, John Waters also acted as an unofficial consultant. The writers ran ideas by him whilst scripting the episode, and he offered advice and suggested edits. One of the most notable changes he made is that initially Homer referred to John as the F-slur, and Waters had them change it to the word “queer”.
As a gay man of a certain age, I HATE the word "queer."
"The Anvil" was an infamous New York gay club from 1980s. Apparently, some scenes from "Cruising" were shot there
Stephen Stucker from Airplane 1 and 2 and Kentucky Fried Movie is my favorite gay man, just because I find him hilarious and his happy "gay" attitude very uplifting.
In the US, two glasses of wine means you have a drinking problem.
In the U.K., two glasses of wine means you’re the designated driver.
camp means something different in the US. it basically means so cheesy that it is fun or in style. basically just ironically cool.
Like kitsch?
I go right to "camp" as seen in old British comedy, the overexaggerated hand gestures/walk, higher pitched voice etc. Kenneth Williams, Larry Grayson etc.
just think of the carry on films are very camp
I'd like to see your take on Mr Garrison from South Park coming out as gay. I recently realised he's actually the first animated character to literally come out as gay ( years before smithers) and this video seemed like the perfect time to point that out 🤣.
There’s a big discussion around queer coded Disney villains. Check out the video by Rowan Ellis as an example.
Camp and Kitsch go hand in hand and if you know anything about recent nostalgia antiques collecting you'd know that most antique and or curio shop owners/proprietors were known to be queer or queer adjacent. Curious and queer are almost synonymous: "What a curious fellow." "What a queer* fellow." * queer here was used in the pre twentieth century to mean odd, unusual or out of sort and not as homosexual or necessarily perverted.
In an episode of _WKRP in Cincinnati_ Les becomes temporarily suicidal when he's mistaken for gay. He was interviewing a local baseball player, and doing a poor job of it; after he left one of the other reporters said to another one "queer little fellow, isn't he?" and the ball player misunderstood, demanding that Les be banned from the locker room because he's gay.
Camp is like when a clown dies lol
Camp is 12 tents.
The late comedian Rip Taylor made a similar point about the term “openly gay”. People assumed he was gay because he was flamboyant and in a long term relationship with a man, but he was actually bisexual. When a journalist referred to him as “openly gay” in an article, Taylor emailed him and wrote "You don't know me to surmise I am openly gay. I don't know you're not an open heroin user. You see how that works? Think before you write.
I love that he was holding a mug before John brought his out. And I've seen the episode so many times I was ready for it.
"Light in the heels" is one of my favorites.
My favorite was "walks with a lisp."
For me, “He’s creative”.
When I hear "camp" my mind IMMEDIATELY goes to The Rocky Horror Picture Show
I'm gay middle aged man ...
when I was a teen / 15 ... I remember distinctly the very real feeling of fear I had at one point when thinking of gay men .
In my mind I realized what the fear WAS , was the fear of losing my sexual identity by a gay man taking it away .
The olde ' turning you gay ' lie
In my life I remember being less than ten years old and gazing at a shirtless guy across the street and being fascinated by him long before i was interested in sex . And my whole life being wary of women and not attracted sexually .
So it was interesting that even I , had at one point a fear of gay culture .
It opened my eyes to the first hand feeling of it in others .
I used that clip at the end with Bart saying “He thinks I’m gay?” as a trsnsition between songs in a mix CD back in 2001. Can’t remember which songs. I downloaded it off Napster (and have instantly aged myself). It brings back fond memories. My husband and kids and I listened to that mix a LOT that summer, mostly on the way to the beach.
"Up to the knukle"
"Backwards mechanic"
"Likes to play in the dirt"
All from family guy
I knew when I was 7, but I didn't.
I never actually properly figured myself out until about 4 or 5 years ago, I'm 34 now.
I spent the longest time thinking I was bi because I liked a few girls growing up but then it hit me 1 day, I never ever found any of them actually attractive like that.
The 90's was torture to grow up like that, nobody ever talked about it, I still don't know if my mum knows, she just, christ, impossible to talk to she is
& how did I know at 7 you ask, I gave a couple boys valentines cards.
& I distinctly remember finding them physically attractive, hah, I still remember all of them nearly 3 decades on.
Oh, the reaction I got was toxic when they figured out who they were from.
I've thought about that moment since as well, nearly 30 kids in our class, almost half boys, I wonder how many of us were gay or bi, wonder if any of them knew at the time or if that was a trigger for them to think about such stuff.
But yup, that was @ 7 years old, having no understanding of the reaction that came.
When I hear the term camp (as a straight guy, so not too much weight on my thoughts) it always makes me think of the Adam west Batman in the 1960s series and how homophobia still plays a part today in how Batman fans are unwilling to consider the more camp version of Batman as a valid version of Batman. Even though the best Batman actor ever (Kevin Conroy the voice of Batman from the 1990’s up until his death in 2022) was a gay man who was and still is loved unanimously among all varieties of Batman fans. If whoever sees this hasn’t done so already I highly recommend reading his story in DC’s pride issue from either 2021 or 2022 I don’t remember which exactly.
"Something about a bunch of guys.. Alone... In the forest... Seems kind of gay to me" is one of my favourite lines.
Scott Thompson's Buddy Cole or honestly Kids In The Hall in general were crucial to me learning about and understanding that gay people are just that, people like everybody else when I was a kid even before this episode came out.
It’s kinda funny you said about an Analysis about the gay Disney villains there’s an entire episode of Culture Cruise that delves into it. It’s a show on TH-cam that gets into lgbtq things in tv and pop culture. And talking about from a psychiatrists view the episode about of all things bob Newheart actually goes into when homosexuality was removed from the list of mental illnesses and how that transpired.
Sorry for the side trip it just reminded me of that. Love your show and love this episode of the Simpsons it’s one of my favorite. I’d even bought the dvd set so I could get the video commentary lol.
When talking about Camp influences I grew up with, the first and foremost is John Inman, and his portrayal of Mr. Humphries on "Are you being served?" Mom and I often exchanged "Are you free? I'm free!"
Sadly, in a harsh bit of reality, I learned that customer service is definitely NOT for me.
1985 Gay Millennial here! From just outside Toronto.
- Housing was wild; my 2-parent income has a combined household of.... maybe 90k and we had a 5 floor house. And we were considered solidly middle class (not even upper-middle class). It was just normal. EXTREMELY normal. I've gone back to that neighbourhood in the past few years.... and even though the infrastructure hasn't changed (same houses, etc.), the area is now solidly upper class. Primarily because of the changes of housing changes.
- Prioritising is a word, Doctor
- Homophobia was wild? I can track having gay feelings as a 5 year old (art that also connoted hatred of men); but as a child it was more openly prominent in the home. I'm of Indo-Caribbean descent, and culturally it's much more violent demonstrated that my predominately-white school love. It created a relationship where I loved school and academia (white school = won't be violently hurt for demonstrating effete tendencies). But I was absolutely alienated socially. Only when I went to a high school with a dedicated arts program did I find friends (who, guess what, were all soon-to-be-homos). I'm lucky 90% of my teachers really latched on to me (a clearly queer, brown kid where there were no others at the time).
- Queer rep in the 90s was difficultly to find. As a kid, I was really into anime, was obsessed with Sailormoon, and then found out that there was an openly lesbian couple in the show. Sailoruranus & Sailorneptune were revolutionary characters because they were queer, gender-bending, and were never undermined for being queer. They weren't a joke. They were hypercompetent, serious, and beautiful.
When I think camp, I think Graham Norton, which is why it was a shock to me (having learnt at a young age to not automatically assume that Camp equals Gay) to discover that he was also gay 😅
The best part of that episode was when Moe and Homer were driving back in the truck from the camping trip. Moe suggests taking Lisa camping instead of Bart. When Homer tells Moe that Lisa’s a vegetarian, he says “Oh Homer! Geeze! You and Marge ain’t cousins are ya?”
This episode litterally changed how I perceived people. I was 11 when this episode released, and in a lot of ways, my life was a lot like Bart's. I lived in a pretty average house, I was the big brother to 2 younger siblings, my family went to church every Sunday, etc. Not to mention that it seemed like absolutely everyone watched The Simpsons regularly back then. Only difference is that I'm Canadian.
But yeah, this episode is what really got me to question a lot of beliefs that I had held without question. It took me a few years before I actually challenged and changed those beliefs, but this episode was the very fist step towards change for me.
I've always known I liked girls, my first real crush being a girl who joined my kindergarten class, and I had never personally known anyone who was gay at that point, so this was literally my first interaction with gay culture of any kind, And I remember thinking that If this is what gay people are really like that, then I don't see why other people have a problem .
That wasn't the Cher version of "The Shoop Shoop Song." That was the Betty Everet version. Homer wasn't complaining about Bart singing along, it was about him wearing a woman's wig while singing along.
Love that you did not once mention that John on this episode is John Waters. Whats even more ironic, Ursula is based on his character of Divine, so if he says its camp, its camp lol
This was The Simpsons adt its best. Funny, great social commentary, and good introspection. I’m the same age as you. And was raised predominantly in a somewhat moderate catholic household and school, and through social conditioning had my own ideas about what I thought was normal and abnormal. The week after I turned 18, the Mardi Gras was on here in Sydney, and my friends girlfriend wanted to go. I was curious but I was nervous because I still had all these stupid ideas about homosexuality. Not only was it one of the funniest nights of my life. As somebody who had gone blind as a teenager and who always felt, like I was an outcast, it was an amazing festival of odd and strange and very liberating and freeing because nobody pays attention to the blind guy with a cane in his hand because there’s a guy over there on a float with assless chaps having the time of his life rocking out to bohemian Rhapsody. I have never had an opinion about something change overnight the way that happened that night. And I’m very grateful.
Re: US drinking culture, it depends on where you live. Students at the university in my hometown had a tradition of doing 21 shots on their 21st birthday, and yes, some of them died from alcohol poisoning. I’m from the drunkest state in the country, though.
Wisconsin always throws off any discussion about US drinking habits
@@dennisthechemist4413 The drinking statistic equivalent of Spiders George
I was the only person who knew what syrup of ipecac was in my EMT course because I read a lot about queer history and knew it was used in conversion therapies. Knowing your history will always come in handy, even in unexpected places!
Huh.... first time I've heard of Friend of Dorothy but my mind went immediately to Dorothy from the Golden Girls
Fr. Jack from the show father Ted is the definition of having an alcohol problem
3:50 It's Homer's old bowling shirt from a previous episode, which Marge donated to Goodwill.
In the US, a Tuesday night in the UK is considered normal drinking lol.
Binge-drinking however is super common, especially in your early 20s, so people don't usually blink an eye if you're getting wasted every Friday night in college. Culturally, it begins to be considered a problem if you're doing that multiple times a week, or you don't outgrow it, or you're drinking more than a few drinks daily. Basically the usual - if it's interfering with your life.
Ah ok. Learned something new about the word "camp" today.
Rob Halford. I like how his music subverts the expectation of what music from a gay artist should sound like. Also, in It, I think it's really ironic because there's a homophobe in the book who lists Judas Priest as one of his favorite bands, before he came out.
It's like Archie Bunker on the show All in the family when he saves a drag queen from a mugger not realising that she's a drag queen and his wife Edith can tell right away. Archie flips out at first but he eventually befriends the drag queen.
My favorite episode! John Waters is an international treasure!!
Genuinely one of my favourite episodes of The Simpsons ever - great writing, story and jokes from start to finish! In terms of it's time it was quite the revolutionary episode showcasing gay people to a primetime TV audience in western culture.
Queer icon for me will always be Chyna, the wrestler. I always loved wrestling so queer icons didn't really come by much, but Chyna really subverted the idea of what a strong female could be. Always loved her getting her flowers in her day. Ellen and Graham Norton were probably my first real visual representation of queer people on TV, so they also have that place in my heart. And who couldn't ever not love Sean Hayes as Jack MacFarland in Will and Grace? Unabashed, authentic and hilarious all the time! Showing my age now!
I think camp just is.
It's undefinable, but you know it when you see it.
The conversation that Homer has with Moe about homosexuals and the steel works is practically the same conversation my father and uncle had back in the 1990s, where they discussed how a postman in a town "40 miles" away, being potentially "gay", meant that the Royal Mail had been "taken-over" by homosexuals. The 90s were a very different time folks.
On section 28 - it was current Lib Dem leader and paddle board enthusiast Sir Ed Davey who introduced a backbench bill that repealed section 28.
Thanks. Interesting perspective on the Simpsons episode.
Camp to me was the Carry on films, Mr Humphries from Are You Being Served and here in Australia when Graham Kennedy was hosting Blankety Blanks and he'd do his Cyril character.
Maybe the Scarlett Pimpernel could be classed as camp.
"He's a ho...mo... sapien." Homer was on board for that statement... or Homer's low vocabulary made him open to any word that he might not know, but he knows 'homosexual'.
I remember watching this episode as a 5th grader back in the 90s. I never knew what a "gay was" until this episode. This episode introduced me to the concept that boys could like boys and it was ok for boys not to conform to standard gender norms.
In a later episode, Homer officiates same sex weddings when the church refuses.
Architect here....Concerning the house of the Simpsons. Homer must have bought the house in the mid 80s. A decent family home, in need of some repairs and built in the 50s/60s outside metropolitan areas ( I would consider Springfield a rather small city, even though it is sometimes portrayed as bigger.) was available for 30-50k $ which would result in a mortage of around 400$.
It's a little off-topic, but I love how you mentioned Oscar Wilde in this episode. There's this story I heard where at his trial he was asked outright if he was gay. His response was a bit more flowery, but it was essentially "bitch, I might be".
I've always admired how he felt no need to hide who he was and it's a shame Oscar Wilde died so young ...
Marge: "He prefers the company of men."
Homer: "Who doesn't?"
A top 10 Simpsons line easily.
I do love this episode because its great. It came out when i was 10 and i didnt...really know what 'gay' meant (i didnt know the 'to be happy' defintion either) so i started asking questions. Once i learned it was loving a person that happens to be the same sex as you i was like 'huh. Ok. Cool. So why is homer upset?' i also had no idea about the stereotypes around gay men so i didnt get the episode...i just was like 'aaww. John seems friendly. i like his car'.
But yeh im not sure what it was in the uk but i learned recently that it was illegal to...exist as gay person until 1998 in tasmania here in australia. That is insanely recent. Like homosexuality was outright illegal. one thing to check out is hannah gadsby's' Nannette' special on netflix. Heartwrenching.
For the house thing. Yes. I own a flat and that’s likely the best I’ll manage for years. My grandad died last year and his 4 bedroom home that he bought for something like 50p in the 70s when they were a single income household (SAH wife) with THREE children has been valued at £355k.
I make significantly above the national average salary in a DINK household, but in order to buy that house on a 25 year mortgage, I’d need to pay 2k a month before paying a single other bill.
I’m 37. I’m older now with no kids than my grandad was when he had 3 kids and bought that house. It’s just so unattainable now.